Happy holidays and a tease for 2012

So my end of year blog to machine builders, and the loyal followers from whatever company.

The model is changing. Think about how personal electronics have changed your life. Do you listen to a CD in your car anymore? I remember back when I drove a “company car” but they allowed me to add things, and I added a 6 CD changer. It was in my trunk. This was in 1996. Do they even put CD changers in cars today? My wife just bought a new 4DSC, and ya know, there is no CD slot. So if we go for a trip I have to listen to her music. Fortunately we have a mesh.

So, huge changes in the music business model. Same for the book industry. Witness this: when we leave for a weekend I take my iPad. I have several books I want to read stored there. Are they on my iPad or the Cloud? I don’t care. I want them when I want them. And before today’s technology existed I would have needed to carry many different books with me. In my case today they are on my iPad, but tomorrow? Who knows? Can I get instant response from the cloud? I bet I can.

In the factory can you afford to ignore the cloud? You know your employees in the plant are going to be using devices that are far more advanced than what they have in the factory. Soon they will be suggesting that they can do “this” (whatever this is) better if they could only…. More on this topic early in 2012.

You cannot ignore technology in your factory operations or in the design of your machine. Take a look under your Christmas tree after all the presents are opened and think of all the technology represented there that didn’t exist 5 years ago, or even last year. Your machines need to keep pace with that same race of technology and that means you need to be able to modify them (either on site or remotely), you need to make them easy to operate with more intuitive displays and controls, you need to make them more efficient and sustainable, and you need to do it with less expense.

A factory and a machine need to operate like a very tight set of meshing gears. One small upset and everything starts to slow and eventually breakdown. With Cisco Borderless Networks, with an open standard infrastructure you have a far better chance of remaining profitable and sustainable.

I and the rest of my peers in the Cisco Manufacturing marketing team send our best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to you and yours. Thanks for all the reads and thanks for making us one of the most popular blogs in Cisco.

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